Only In Dreams
by Feilyn
Summary: Happily ever after only happens in dreams. War is a cold, harsh reality and the aftermath even more so. IchiRuki.
1. Chapter 1

_I don't think I've ever written anything with an actual story line as depressing as this. All of my depressing stories are usually under eight hundred words. This…won't be. I'm thinking two-shot, but you know how my planning turns out._

xXx

Kuchiki Rukia frowned at the computer screen. "I'm sorry, sir, but that reiatsu is _huge_. Wouldn't it be better if a taichō were to go?"

Nearly fifty years since the end of the war and Urahara's subsequent reinstatement, and Rukia still wasn't used to calling him 'sir'.

"It would depend on the source of the reiatsu," he replied. "Look at it. Even a taichō would have trouble dealing with this."

"So why send a fukutaichō?"

A pause. "Kuchiki-san. His last known location was just outside Tokyo. We don't have a signature on this reiatsu yet, but—"

"There is more than one vaizard in the world," she reminded him, staring at the screen. Reiatsu fluctuated wildly on the outskirts of Karakura Town, simultaneously attracting and obliterating the nearby Hollows.

"So uncontrolled?" Urahara asked, and the almost-pity in his voice made her want to hit something. Preferably him. Urahara Kisuke didn't _do_ sentimental. "All things considered, Kuchiki-san—"

"With all due respect, sir, I must refuse," she interrupted tightly. "That - _thing_ will decimate me. I have responsibilities."

"You are the only person who would be able to keep the situation passive. Despite everything, he would never hurt you."

She snorted darkly. "We were many things, Urahara, but passive sure as hell wasn't one of them. Send Karin, although I doubt she'd _pacify_ him any. Perhaps you could give Yuzu back her memories and have him kill another family member."

"You've changed, Kuchiki-san."

She turned on her heel to leave. "I know."

"He doesn't appear to be leaving Karakura Town any time soon."

"So send Renji. Ikkaku. Hell, send _Nii-sama_ if you have to. I'm not getting involved."

The pause should have made her wary, but she'd sort of assumed that Urahara had turned into a decent human being over the past two decades.

"I believe Kurosaki-san would like to meet his daughter."

She should have known better.

xXx

"Oi, Rukia!" Karin called, hefting a bright-eyed blonde child on her hip. "What was that all about?"

Rukia managed to twist her lips into a semblance of a grin. "I'll tell you—"

"Kaa-san!" the child called, squirming out of the younger woman's grasp.

Rukia summed up a real smile for her daughter as the girl bowled into her. "Did you have a good time, Hikari-chan?"

"Mm-hmm! Aunty Karin showed me how to yell at sub…sub…sububordinates! I'm _real_ good at it."

"I bet you are."

"And look! I got a zanpakutō!" Hikari backed away and started swinging around an intricately carved wooden sword. "Now I can be a real shinigami!"

Rukia froze, then glared at Karin. "She doesn't have any reiatsu," she hissed, quietly so Hikari didn't hear. "She _can't_ – how could you—"

"I know!" Karin held her hands up defensively at the irate look on Rukia's face. "I know, you didn't want to get her hopes up. Taichō was carving it for her birthday so she could at least pretend, but she found it and nobody had any time to explain before she was off. Look, Rukia, it's just a bit of fun, all right? I think she knows she's not going to be a shinigami by now, so let us spoil her."

"Kaa-san, look!" Hikari was stalking an unsuspecting Hell Butterfly, wooden sword poised to go in for the kill. Her stance was naturally perfect.

Of course it was.

"Everyone spoils her," Rukia murmured. "She's lucky, I guess. Hell, I'm sorry, Karin. I've just heard some – unsettling news."

"Is that what you were called away for?"

"Hikari, if you hit me with that sword, you won't be visiting the Rukongai for a month," Rukia warned. Bored with the Butterfly, Hikari had turned her attention to her mother.

The girl grinned, shoving the toy through her obi. "Hai-hai!" She held out her arms demandingly. "Pick me up."

"You're getting too big for this," Rukia grumbled, but nonetheless hauled her daughter up onto her back.

Karin raised an eyebrow at her. "Well?"

"Just let me drop Hikari off at Nii-sama's, all right?"

The other woman caught onto her tone immediately and the raised eyebrow dropped into a frown. "That serious?"

"Kaa-san, jump! I wanna catch the butterfly!"

"Hikari, I'm not going to jump so you can catch the butterfly."

"_Kaa-san_."

"_Hikari_."

The girl giggled. "You sound silly." The butterfly fluttered closer

"I sound like you." She turned back to Karin and gave her a tired smile. "I'm taking a trip to the real world."

On her back, Hikari's fingers closed around the butterfly.

xXx

"You're _not_ taking Hikari," Karin said, dark eyes disbelieving.

"Of course not. Urahara was just being an arsehole." Rukia sighed. "He's right though. If it _is_ him, I'm the best person to find out what the hell he's doing in Karakura Town."

"And if it's nothing, that thing'll kill you. Hell, _he _might kill you. You're strong, Rukia, but you're not that strong."

"No one's that strong," she muttered. "Karin - I don't want to go. Either way, I don't want to take the chance. But _someone _has to investigate the reiatsu and the likelihood that it's him…well, his last known location was just outside of Tokyo." She let her head slip forward onto his hands. "It makes sense."

"So if it makes that much sense, let me go. I can identify him just as well as you can. You don't need to take the chance."

"What, so he can kill you? Again? Karin--"

"No!" The younger woman stood, slamming her hands on the table. "I've already lost one sister to this goddamned war! I'm _not_ going to lose another!"

"The war's over," Rukia said softly.

"Is that what you think?" Karin sank back into her seat, bitter. "Fifty years, and we're all still fighting. Look me in the eye and tell me it's not still affecting you."

She tried. She really did, even going so far as to open her mouth to say the words, only to find that no sound came out. She looked down at her hands and changed the subject instead. "He doesn't know he killed you, Karin. If you show up, young and…"

"Oh, don't be stupid. Anyone with powerful reiatsu--"

"You didn't _have_ powerful reiatsu, Karin! The only reason you're a fukutaicho now is because _he contaminated you_."

Karin's face tightened. "Of course. It didn't have anything to do with years of going through the spiritual equivalent of chemotherapy. Absolutely nothing to do with two decades worth of hard work. I'm only here because my brother infected me with goddamn spiritual _cancer_ after he killed me!"

"I didn't mean it like that, and you know it!" Now Rukia was getting angry. So she hadn't exactly been tactful, but she had her own problems. A daughter to look after, for example. A little girl who wanted nothing more than to be something she never could. She loved Hikari, of course she did, and that was _why_ her daughter's wish to be a shinigami was so painful, because Rukia knew she'd never be able to grant it.

And then there was this. This, which she couldn't even put a name to because that would make it all too real.

_Just when I put him behind me…_

Of course, that was a lie. She'd never put him behind her.

Karin appeared to have calmed down a little. "I'm not letting you go."

"You can't _order_ me around!" she flared.

"Think about your daughter! What am I meant to tell her when kaa-san doesn't come home? She's on a long trip? She's with tou-san now? The _truth_?"

Rukia paled. "You wouldn't."

The other woman sighed, rubbing a tired hand over her face. "No. I wouldn't. Even if you did go. I wouldn't hurt her like that. You, on the other hand, seem to have no problem with it."

"Urahara's almost certain, and you _know_ what his almost certain is good for."

"Why are you trying to convince me now? Just before you were saying you didn't want to go!"

"Yeah, well maybe I miss him, Karin! Maybe not a day goes by when I don't think of him, maybe every time I see my daughter I think of what could have been, maybe, _maybe_, I want some goddamned closure!"

"You don't know it's _him!_ Even if Urahara's 'almost certain' is ninety-nine point nine nine percent, when he screws up, he's screws up _big_."

It was Rukia's turn to stand. She was sick of this argument. "I'm going. And you're not stopping me."

xXx

"We will send you in as close to the centre of the reiatsu as possible. You must identify it as soon as you can; if it is not Kurosaki-san--"

"Ukitake-taicho," Rukia interrupted gently. "It's fine. Truly. I know what I am doing. And you and Kyouraku taicho will be on stand-by if necessary."

Her Captain gave her a rueful smile. "I know, Rukia. Forgive me for worrying nonetheless."

She gave him a smile full of confidence she didn't feel as the senkaimon opened. "I'll--"

"Rukia."

She froze, one foot through the door.

"Karin."

Silence.

"I'd probably make a mess of it anyway," Karin said finally.

Rukia still hadn't turned around. "It may not be him."

She could almost _feel_ the grimace in her friend's words. "Don't say that. If it's not him, you're as good as dead."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she replied dryly. Neither of them had said sorry, but both of them were forgiven.

"Che. Someone's gotta look on the dark side of things. May as well be me." A hand on her shoulder. Still, Rukia didn't turn around. "Good luck, I guess."

"God. Luck is the _last _thing I need interfering now." She stepped into the senkaimon. "Make sure Nii-sama doesn't kill my kid, all right?"

"Of course."

The door shut behind her and she still hadn't turned.

xXx

_All right. So, I have a history exam to work on tomorrow night, so I won't be able to post the rest of this till Friday, New Zealand time. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Argh, I forgot to do this last chapter! Pimpage for my wonderful amazing __**cricketchick1990**__ who writes the most amazing IchiRuki (far better than I) and has just started on her first ever chapter fic, __**Cessation**__, which is turning out to be far more epic than I (and I think she) expected. Go check it out, it's awesome!_

_Anyway, this is the second and last chapter of Only In Dreams, and I feel sad now. It's sad. Usually when I write sad things, there's hope. There's no hope here. It's a very strange feeling. Also, Hikari means light._

xXx

Rukia thought on her daughter as she ran through the halfway world. She was like a miniature, feminine replica of her father - an open, honest face, wide brown eyes and bright, bright hair, albeit a few shades blonder than his had been.

The name Hikari had been his choice. At the time, Rukia had hit him over the head and accused him of being ridiculously cheesy, but in the aftermath of the war she'd clung to it desperately as the last thing he'd ever said to her.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty. Looking back, she should have known he was saying good-bye.

"_Kaa-san?"_

"_Hmm?" By rights Hikari should have been in bed, but Rukia had allowed her to stay up after the girl had begged to keep her company as the vice-captain finished her work._

"_Where's tou-san?"_

_Rukia swore as she knocked her ink pot over. Hikari's brown eyes went wide and she gasped almost comically._

"_Kaa-san! You said a bad word!"_

_Rukia grimaced, scrambling around to find something to clean up the mess she'd made her. "I did," she admitted, accepting the cloth that Hikari had scurried off to retrieve. "Don't repeat it"_

"_Hai-hai!" A pause. "Kaa-san…you didn't answer the question."_

"_No. No, I didn't." She mopped absently at the ink. _To lie, or not to lie? _The question of a lifetime. Hikari's lifetime. "He…he died, Hikari-chan. In the war." _To lie.

_The small girl frowned, thinking that over and Rukia breathed a sigh of deep relief. Hikari wasn't the kind of girl to burst into tears, but still._

"_Was he a hero?"_

_Funny how she'd assumed right of that bat that he was a shingami._

_Rukia closed her eyes, working up a gentle smile for her daughter. "Yes." Liar. "He really was."_

_The small girl climbed up into her lap. "That how he died?"_

_She kept her eyes closed. "It sure was, Hikari-chan. He died saving us all."_

_**Liar.**_

And that was the official story. Kurosaki Ichigo died killing Aizen Sousuke and in the process cleared the way for Inoue Orihime to destroy the Hougyoku. To the majority of Soul Society, Kurosaki Ichigo died a hero.

Only a select few knew the truth. His close friends and the Captains of the Gotei Thirteen. Not even the vice-captains were told. So far as most people knew, the spiritual cancer contracted by some was a failed biological warfare tactic of Aizen's.

_The truth…_

The doors opened and Rukia stepped into the physical world. She hadn't visited Karakura Town for fifty years.

The overwhelming reiatsu forced her to one knee and she let out a choked cry, not at the extreme pressure, but because of the sheer _familiarity_ of it.

"Rukia?" Ukitake's voice crackled through her headset. "Kyouraku-taicho and myself are on standby. Do we need to come through?"

"No," she croaked. "No, it's him." The reaitsu _pulsed_ and hers responded in kind, flaring up.

"Nonetheless--"

"No, taicho, I mean it's _him._ That's why they couldn't identify the reiatsu." She was gasping for breath now, the pressure almost too much as she started to lose control of her own reiatsu. "It's not the hollow. _He's back in control._"

The truth…the truth was that Ichigo had sold his soul to his own personal devil. In exchange for gaining the power to kill Aizen, he had given up control of his body to the Hollow inside. The last time Rukia had seen him, he hadn't _been _there.

Just an empty shell.

The reiatsu became oppressive and she sank to the ground, every nerve-ending screaming in awareness of the presence behind her. Her headset crackled again, but whatever Ukitake said, she didn't hear.

"Rukia."

One word shouldn't have been able to hold so much emotion. She made to turn around, swimming laboriously through the reiatsu only to be stopped by the steel cold edge of Zangetsu at her throat.

"Did they send you here to kill me?"

She shuddered at the desperate _hope_ in his voice and nicked the skin of her neck on Zangetsu. There was an almost reptilian hiss and the blade was wrenched away.

"Cover it up," he growled. "Cover it up!"

She placed a shaky hand over the shallow cut. The odd, double layered tone that his voice had held last time she had seen him was gone, but she'd caught sight of scaly bone in Zangetsu's mirrored surface. He may have been in control again, but it obviously wasn't permanent.

She made to turn around again.

"Don't."

"_Why?_" It was the first word she'd said, raw and ripped from her throat, and the double, triple, quadruple meaning was obvious.

_Why what?_

_Why everything._

She tried to turn around a third time and was faced with Zangetsu once again.

"Don't look at me."

The words were soft, near inaudible, and she understood immediately.

"Ichigo…"

Half a century, and she hadn't said the name aloud once. She was surprised it came out right.

"Please."

She had seen him when he first gave up control, wild mane of orange hair spilling over a body wrapped entirely in white. Cold, crazy eyes, a Hollow without the hole. He had killed Karin so easily before wresting a miniscule amount of control back and butchering Aizen.

"I didn't come to kill you," she said quietly, hesitantly. "At least…" It was then that she remember her headset. "Ukitake-taicho?"

"We are in the physical world now, Rukia."

"What? I said I could--"

"You need to talk with Kurosaki-san. Turn the headset off and simply call out if we are needed."

"H-hai, taicho."

Dazed was the word, she realised. Completely, totally and utterly dazed.

"I didn't come here to kill you," she repeated.

"Why not?"

"Why - why _not?_" Anger flared and it was almost like old times. She almost impaled herself on Zangetsu, attempting to whirl around as she did. "Goddamn, Ichigo, just let me see you!"

"I don't want you to see me." His voice was rusty from years of disuse.

"Then why are you here? Why Karakura, why _now?_" It was so hard to have the conversation without looking at him, although she supposed that he didn't look anything like the Ichigo she had known once.

"I--" Break off, pause. Start again. "I…I've been fighting. Fifty years. For control again. I thought…" Break off, pause. Start again. "I thought I could do it. Sacrifice…sacrifice everything to save everything."

He hadn't been glib at the best of times fifty years ago, but language had still been his best subject.

_Fifty years. Fifty years of not talking to a single soul other than yourself. What sorts of things would you forget?_

"I couldn't. I couldn't. So I fought back for control. And I got it. Kind of."

Her hand, sticky with blood, slipped a little off the wound on her neck and she heard another hiss.

"_Cover it up!_"

"I will! God, just…just wait, all right? Wait." She tore off the hem of her shihakushou and tied it around her neck like a scarf, hiding the wound. "Better?"

A shaky sigh. "Yeah. I…yeah."

"Why are you back here?" Her voice came out harsher than she'd meant it to, but she couldn't help it. Reality was quickly crashing down around her.

"I…this place. It needs protecting. And my family…I've seen Yuzu. She's old now, and she couldn't…she couldn't see me." Confusion. "I couldn't find Karin."

"Yuzu doesn't remember anything." _Oh, god. Ohgod. _What did she do here? What could she say? There were so many truths, so many _lies_ that she didn't know what to tell him.

_He deserves to know the truth._

He deserved it for leaving her. For giving up all hope and signing off his soul. He deserved it for everything.

_And yet…_

He deserved to be lied to.

"She couldn't handle the effects of the war." _She watched you turn into a monster and kill her sister. _"When Karin - Karin died a few months after it was over, in a car accident. She was so pissed off, you wouldn't believe, coming through the war like that and being taken out by something so mundane."

_When you killed her in that Hollow form, you infected her. Caused her own Hollow personality to grow, but slowly, slowly. Like cancer. Malignance growing, pushing at her reiatsu and forcing it bigger as it took over. Thirteen years of purging it took to get rid of all the traces. Spiritual equivalent of chemotherapy._

"Yuzu asked us to remove her memories of the war, but to do that we had to remove her memories of you and Karin." _She begged us to erase the image of you tearing through her sister's heart. _"Old goat face stayed in the real world to look after her. So far as she knows, she was born an only child."

"She doesn't remember me? Or the war?"

"I just said that, didn't I?"

That was…happiness she heard in his voice. Happiness, now.

"I'm glad. She - she looked happy. When I saw her. And Karin, is she in Soul Society?"

Eagerness now. Of course. He'd been fifty years insane, without contact. Of course he wanted to know everything.

She was just unbelievably hurt that he hadn't remembered. The most important thing in his life, he'd said, and now he had forgotten.

"She's a fukutaicho. Eleventh Division, under Ikkaku. Yumichika stepped down for her. He was freakin' ecstatic to finally get third seat."

"Che. Pansy."

For a moment there it was just like old times. It could have been any summer afternoon, reminiscing about the stupid past.

"You have a daughter," she blurted.

_Idiot._

She should have kept silent. She should have let him forget. He deserved to forget, deserved to live in blissful ignorance. She only wished _she_ could.

Silence.

"I…you didn't miscarry."

And now wonder. Now wonder in his voice. For the first time since he'd demanded she not look at him, she was glad of the request. It meant he couldn't see the look of utter devastation on her face.

_No, I didn't miscarry._

"No." She said it aloud. "I didn't."

_It was worse._

"Unohana said there was a chance--"

"I didn't miscarry," she repeated softly. "And our daughter was born normal. As normal as a Kurosaki could get, anyway."

_Lies._

_You had a son as well._

_You had a monster._

Rukia had been three months pregnant when he surrendered, and he'd known. What he hadn't known, what she hadn't known at the time, was that she was pregnant with twins.

One girl, Hikari.

One boy. Monster.

Ichigo's genes had mutated. His very DNA. The Hollow deformity was encoded like a disease, and it bypassed Hikari to fully infect her twin.

At seven and a half months, Kuchiki Rukia gave birth via C-section before her son tried to claw his way out. He'd already eaten Hikari's reiatsu and was ready to start on the child herself.

She didn't give him a name. It hurt too much to think about, let alone speak out loud.

This, she could give Ichigo. Call it repayment for fifty years worse of resentment and hate and unutterable loss. She could give him this lie.

"Her name's Hikari."

"You remembered."

"Of course I remembered. I'm not an idiot. It fits, anyway. She looks like you. Lighter hair, same eyes. Same face. Smarter, though. Real smart. Wants to be a shingami." _Can't, won't ever. _"She thinks you're dead. Most of Soul Society does."

Contentment. She could feel it rolling off of him in waves. "Good."

"I won't tell her the truth."

"Thank you. She doesn't…she doesn't deserve to know this."

_Nobody deserves a lot of things. What did I do to deserve this?_

It wasn't the time for pointless self pity though. This was…Rukia didn't known what this was the time for.

"Can I look at you?' she asked quietly. "Please?"

Silence.

"I'm ashamed," he said finally. "I should have been able to fight this. I should have found another _way_."

"You should have," she agreed. That, at least, she couldn't rescue him from. "But please. Let me look at you."

Another long pause, before the soft thunk of Zangetsu sinking into the ground met her ears. "Fine."

She turned, slowly and the moment she took him in, she knew.

There was no happy ending here.

The moment she'd felt his reiatsu, knew he was back in control, hope had kindled. Stupid hope - too many lies had been spun already for him to ever return to Soul Society - but hope nonetheless.

Now she knew.

It didn't bear describing. But there was no coming back from what he'd done to himself. Nothing could be done to change this. She was almost afraid to look into his eyes, terrified that she would be met with yellow and black.

But no. That, at least, was the same. Horrifically sane brown eyes, staring at her from beneath that damnable mask.

"I have to go back," she whispered. "I have to go back. What…what are you going to do here? I need to report, I need to--"

"I'm going to watch over Yuzu," he interrupted. "I'm going to look after Karakura Town. And then I'm going to die."

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.

Who was she kidding? She didn't know what the hell she wanted, except for everything to go back to how it used to be.

But it didn't work that way. Not even the awesome power of Inoue Orihime could reject these events.

"She's sixty," Rukia told him. "It's been fifty years. Yuzu is sixty. She has a husband, three children and five grandchildren. She'll hang on for another thirty years at least." She swallowed, hard. "Wait for me."

"What?"

"Wait for me. Thirty years, give or take. Thirty years, and I'll come back here. I'll do it."

"You'll--"

"I'll kill you, Ichigo."

And even though that mask covered his face - or maybe was his face, she couldn't bear to look at it long enough to tell - she knew he was smiling. She just knew.

"Thank you."

She blinked fast. _Damn it. Damn it! I though I cried myself out five decades ago. _"Don't mention it," she croaked. "I - I have to go. Get back. Now."

"Right."

She tore herself away from him and stepped quickly back to the senkaimon.

He didn't say it and neither did she. No use tearing new wounds in old hearts.

_I love you._

"Rukia?" Ukitake's voice, his horribly kind voice. "Are you all right?"

She stared, unblinkingly, at the halfway world ahead.

"No."

xXx

_Yes, that's an awful place to end it. I know. That's the point. I so badly wanted to resolve it all, but I resisted. I just wanted this to be hopeless so bad, and I don't know why. I hope it worked though, and thanks for reading!_


End file.
